Has Bill Clinton lost Geraldo Rivera? A dejected Rivera, until now
Clinton's Defender-in-Chief, opened Thursday's Upfront Tonight on
CNBC: "Hi everybody and welcome to what may be the beginning of the
end of the Clinton presidency..."

With so much media coverage it's hard to keep track of it all. Thursday
afternoon CNN expanded Inside Politics from 30 to 150 minutes (4 to 6:30pm
ET) and again aired a one-hour special at 8pm ET. FNC dedicated the entire
7pm ET Fox Report to the Starr report fallout. (This time co-anchor Jane
Skinner wore pants.)

All the network
evening shows outlined how Starr's report charges Bill Clinton with 11
offenses in four broad areas, but on the broadcast networks only ABC's
Jackie Judd raised the pattern Starr suggested linking Monica Lewinsky and
Webster Hubbell. CBS and NBC explained that the report will detail
Clinton's sexual encounters with Lewinsky in order to demonstrate how
they don't match his denial of sex based even on his narrow definition.
NBC's Lisa Myers vaguely broached a story broken by the Drudge Report
weeks ago, saying that among the "lurid details" is "a
sexual episode involving a cigar." She's the first network reporter
to mention the cigar episode.

While the overall
tone of the broadcast networks Thursday night reflected a crisis for a
President in deep trouble, there were some noteworthy cases of reporters
still pushing spin favorable to Clinton, portraying him as a victim or as
one suffering pain instead of as a schemer still just deceiving people by
pretending to be sorry:
-- Peter Jennings emphasized how the report is
just "a prosecutor's document."
-- Talk of impeachment contradicts the promise of
"bi-partisan cooperation and caution," contended Dan Rather in
noting how Clinton won't even get an advanced look at the report.
-- ABC's Peggy Wehmeyer served up cues for
Clinton's minister and Clinton himself to say he deserves forgiveness,
-- In the meeting with his Cabinet Clinton
"was hurting" insisted CBS's Scott Pelley. He was "close
to tears" claimed NBC's David Bloom.
-- CBS's Bill Plante repeated the canard that
Hillary first learned of the Lewinsky affair just days before August 17.

Most bizarre point
of the night: ABC's Jack Smith worrying about how the
"have-nots," the supposed 83 percent without access to the
Internet.

Some highlights
from September 10:

-- ABC's World
News Tonight. Anchor Peter Jennings cautioned at the top of the show:
"In the Congress today they are wrestling with the possibility of
impeaching the President, now that he's accused of numerous crimes.
Important note: This is purely a prosecutor's document. There has been
no defense, so far."

Up first, Jackie
Judd reported: "According to sources, prosecutors say Mr. Clinton
cited executive privilege not to protect the office of the presidency, but
only to protect himself and to keep witnesses away from prosecutors."
She added a point not made by CBS or NBC:
"Prosecutors tried to establish a pattern of obstruction. The claim
is made that the efforts to get Monica Lewinsky a job are similar to
efforts made on behalf of the President's friend Web Hubbell when Starr
was trying to gain Hubbell's cooperation in the Whitewater
investigation. The report concludes that in both cases the motive was the
same: Keep witnesses happy and less inclined to offer evidence damaging to
the President."

Next, Linda
Douglass checked in from Capitol Hill, concluding: "One Democrat said
if Starr's report is bad and credible Democrats will start running from
the President."

Jennings turned to
Jack Smith to explain how the report will be available on the Internet.
Smith first considered the fear of Web overload and then worried:
"There's also concern about the 83 percent of American households
who do not have access to the Internet. There is the Government Printing
Office, which promises to have copies a day later, but most American will
have to rely on the print media..."

ABC religion
correspondent Peggy Wehmeyer opened a unique, enterprising story:
"Bill Clinton, a life-long Southern Baptist, has professed a deep
commitment to his Christian faith. But leaders of the Presidents own
denomination now say his public proclamation of faith is in such
contradiction to his private behavior that he should resign."
After a soundbite from Paige Patterson, President
of the denomination, she spent the rest of the piece knocking down the
suggestion. Noting that Rex Horne, pastor of Clinton's church in Little
Rock, has no intention of expelling Clinton, Wehmeyer then tossed
softballs at the minister.
Question #1: "What would you want people to
know about him that only you might know?" Horne answered that Clinton
has tension in his life and "does things he does not want to
do." Question #2: "What advice would you give him as pastor if
you could at this crossroads." The piece then ended with a long
Clinton soundbite from 1994 on God's forgiveness. The last words of the
story were Clinton's: "The God I believe in is a God of second
chances."

-- CBS Evening News. Scott Pelley told viewers:
"The report also alleges Mr. Clinton lied before a federal judge when
he swore 'I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. Starr
says Mr. Clinton then lied to the grand jury when he said that statement
was accurate. It was a claim he repeated to the nation."
After a clip of Clinton's "legally
accurate" claim Pelley uniquely added: "Sources tell CBS News
some grand jury members became angry when Mr. Clinton said that in
testimony. Their questions became pointed and skeptical..."
Pelley later noted: "Because Mr. Clinton
insisted his conduct was not technically sex, the Starr report describes
his encounters in the Oval Office in great detail..."
Pelley concluded with a late update from the late
afternoon Cabinet meeting: "Cabinet officers have told CBS News the
meeting was extraordinary. One of them said quote 'the President was
hurting.' Dan."

Dan Rather then
introduced Bob Schieffer on Capitol Hill by castigating Republicans:
"For all of the talk of bi-partisan
cooperation and caution, there's plenty of impeachment talk in the air,
plenty of resignation talk in the air, and a definite push for fast public
release of the details of Starr's report even before the Clinton camp
sees it. With that in mind, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt said
today, and I quote, 'You don't overturn the results of an American
election on a whim,' unquote."

A few stories
later Rather interviewed Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. One question:
"What are you hearing from the people back home? You come from a
pretty conservative area of the country. What are they telling you?"
Yeah, his state of South Dakota is so
conservative it now has two liberal Democratic Senators and gave the
nation George McGovern.

Later in the show
Bill Plante looked at Hillary Clinton, passing along the White House spin:
"Over the weekend before his speech to the nation, when she
reportedly first learned that he had lied about the Lewinsky affair, Mrs.
Clinton went to church with the President."

-- NBC Nightly News. Lisa Myers picked up on one
of Starr's points: "At key times, when there's more pressure on
Monica to tell what she knows, the President's efforts to help her get a
job intensify."
After noting that the report concluded Vernon
Jordan did not do anything wrong and may have been unwittingly used by
Clinton, Myers said the report will provide "lurid details of the
President's encounters with Lewinsky, offered as proof that he lied in
his deposition in the Jones case in January....One example legal sources
say will be made public in the report, a sexual episode involving a
cigar."

Reporting on the
Cabinet meeting, David Bloom told viewers of Clinton's pain: "I
spoke with several people who were inside the room. They described the
President as close to tears, at times barely audible..."

Later, looking at
how the scandal has rattled the market, Tom Brokaw interviewed Treasury
Secretary Robert Rubin: "A tough question to begin. If the market
continues to fall precipitously because of the President's troubles, is
there a point when you go to him and say it's in the country's
interest that he must resign?"

Good Morning America co-host Lisa McRee just can't resist forwarding
Democratic anti-conservative spin, even in the face of overwhelming
evidence. MRC analyst Clay Waters caught this question during a September
10 interview with humorist P.J. O'Rourke to promote his new book,
"Eat the Rich." After O'Rourke marveled at Clinton's ability
to fib, suggesting he'd make a good car salesman at O'Rourke Buick,
and admitting he'd done some bad things, but nothing that would take 140
pages to explain, McRee countered:
"Couldn't this be just a witch hunt,
couldn't the Democrats and President Clinton's people who've been
defending him all these months be right, that even though he screwed up
there's some political motivation there. Couldn't that be right?"

From the September 10 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten
Signs You're About To Be Impeached." Copyright 1998 by Worldwide
Pants, Inc.

10. When you call to congratulate Mark
McGwire, he lets his machine get it.
9. Your press secretary keeps introducing you as "President William
Milhous Clinton."
8. You're invited to appear on Jeopardy's "Impeached Presidents
Week."
7. Tipper Gore's in your office measuring it for drapes.
6. Even the sluttiest new intern won't give you the time of day.
5. Library of Congress stops letting you sign out books.
4. You walk into the Capitol commissary and 500 people simultaneously say,
"Shhh! He's here!"
3. Somebody changed the locks on Monica Lewinsky.
2. Suddenly, everyone's kissing Al Gore's big cinder-block ass.
1. Your new Secret Service code name: "Roadkill."

And from the Late
Show Web page, "the extra jokes that didn't quite make it into the
Top Ten."

-- You now have to pay for the headset
rental on Air Force One
-- The ghost of Nixon appears before you, says, "Dude, you're
screwed."
-- The Post Office puts you on their "Disgraced Presidents"
series of stamps.
-- Your limo has a moving company flier stuck under the windshield wiper.
-- Your behavior has caused even Ted Kennedy to say, "That boy's got
problems."
-- Those 21 guns aren't pointing in the air.

If events warrant
I'll be distributing a CyberAlert this weekend. -- Brent Baker[1]

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